Player Profile: Dan MeerschaertApril 27th, 2018, 11:38 am

How long have you been playing?: When I was 12 or so, my brother dragged me to a “medieval reenactment” group called the “Empire of the Imperial Magistrocracy” which, when I look back, I’m pretty sure is a cult for people who don’t get fun names in the SCA. After some years (I was 14) we had a feast event that was invaded by bandits! Those bandits were visiting from a LARP in Buffalo called Adventures in Mid-land! Mid-land had an age limit of 15, so after a few months I headed out there and it was fantastic. For those of you who don’t know, Mid-land is kind of Novitas’s parent. KoN has grown an incredible amount, but many of our core concepts are due to the work of our predecessor organization. Anyway, driving from CNY to Buffalo every month was getting old, and the Mid-landers were transitioning to Dagorhir so my attendance to their games went down. The thought came up that we could host a local mid-land event, “Mid-land East” and get much the same game but less driving. We (and by we I mean Dave H, Jim R, and others) hosted the first event at VK May 2004. Shortly afterwards Mid-land said “No we don’t want to do this dance. You can use our rules but you can’t be Mid-land”. So that summer was spent world-building and September 2004 I went to the first KoN event. TLDR: I’ve always been playing.

Describe your character:Atticus is all the things Dan wants to be: Wise, worldly, smart, strong, capable. He’s a hero who doesn’t care about glory or money. He’s an excellent fighter, a master wizard, a powerful druid, and a terrible thief. If you’ve got a problem, Atticus can solve it, and sometimes that means Atticus is going to show up and tell you what the right thing to do is.

What was your favorite in game moment?:This is a hard one, so I’m gonna cheat and list a handful. The first time I soloed an encounter was eye-opening and exhilarating. Every time my party is together and out adventuring it’s always a blast. Once upon a time Atticus decided what the town was doing was stupid, so he sat on his porch and waited for them to do whatever it was; the downside was that while the town was out, a swarm of undead moved in. Atticus made a terrible bargain with a Nosferatu that he wouldn’t step off of his porch to help or hinder anyone, in exchange for the undead not bothering him. (Atticus used to be kind of shady) I vividly remember one time shortly after we added the spell Ruin: there were bandits who took some local farmers as slaves. Atticus walked up to one side of their shield wall, cast Ruin and Abomination, and melted all the bandits in seconds. At VK, our shift structure was different so we had the time to go hide loot in the woods. We were walking down the trail and I got the sudden feeling to go check inside a stump about 20 feet of the path. Boom, loot chest, and Loot-dar (loot radar) was born. The short version is that Every in-game moment is my favorite, because KoN is awesome!

Why do you love Kingdoms of Novitas?:KoN has always been there for me. It’s helped me grow from awkward 20 year old to whatever I am today. I’ve seen people gain confidence and translate it to their real world lives, I’ve seen people fall in love, create beautiful works of art, and watched people encourage all of their friends to join this community. It’s the best game I’ve ever played.

Who is your favorite PC?: I can’t answer this. Every single PC is a beautiful work of art. Someone put their whole self into creating something you can interact with, learn about, and even add to yourself.

What did you think your character concept was? What is it now?: My initial concept was to just take healing spells. The idea was that since healers were necessary, they’d funnel loot to me to keep me alive. Easymode for gathering loot! Now though, uh… I guess “Guardian of the Freelands” is a bit pompous, but also the most accurate. If there’s a wrong, Atticus will try to make it right.

How many PCs have you had? What happened to them?: Two. One was back at Mid-land: Vert Bigolo: Goblin Gigolo. I thought I was real edgy at 16. The other one is Atticus. Atticus actually started at the last few months of Mid-land. When we transitions from Mid-land to Novitas we allowed character transfer so I think he came in at level 6 or something.